Vanderbilt Football Coach Will Not Hire Assistants Until He’s Seen What Their Wives Look Like

[Are_grits_groceries]

Ah, Vanderbilt. A refined, enlightened place. "The Harvard of the South," it's called. So it's not without reason that its football coach, James Franklin, seems like the Larry Summers of the South:

I've been saying it for a long time, I will not hire an assistant until I see his wife. If she looks the part and she's a D1 recruit, then you got a chance to get hired. That's part of the deal. There's a very strong correlation between having the confidence, going up and talking to a woman, and being quick on your feet and having some personality and confidence and being articulate and confident, than it is walking into a high school and recruiting a kid and selling him.

Franklin, who said all of this on Clay Travis's 104.5 The Zone radio show, a Vanderbilt- and defining-oneself-through-one's-wife's-attractiveness-friendly zone, credits Moneyball with his inspiration. He said he made his entire staff watch the movie. Presumably they noticed that the film had that pearl of wisdom coming from the geezer strawman scouts whom Brad Pitt wisely ignores. Oh well.

All that said, Franklin's strategy would have been plenty effective before Betty Friedan rolled around in the early 60s. Marriage used to be all about wooing young targets to join an unequal partnership in which they'd wind up oppressed and exploited. Now that's just college football.
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http://deadspin.com/5914625/vanderbilt-football-coach-will-not-hire-assistants-until-hes-seen-what-their-wives-look-like

Dear Coach Franklin,
You are a Maroon!
Do you expect all your recruits to look like 'Chippendales?' Do you vet the crowd and make those you deem unworthy wear paper bags over their heads?
I could care less what somebody's partner looks like. I want them to be good coaches AND both of them to be good role models(Talking to you Arkansas).
I guess on the upside, if the cheerleaders flee, you can make the wives come on down.
You really need to replace that 1955 pin-up calendar on your wall.

Grits

PS After looking at your picture, I am going to throw a stone out of my glass house. Judging by what I see, you will not be going bowling any time soon.

[CTyankee]

1. Just when you think you've seen it all...

[GeorgeGist]

2. To be fair ...

Franklin's wife

[trumad]

3. Unreal...

Imagine if I told this coach---hey--sorry no job because your wife isn't hot enough.

[southernyankeebelle]

4. So tell us is she the coach? Wondering.

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. I didn't look for her picture

because I didn't care. I am commenting on his idiocy.

[stevenleser]

6. Censured or fired. nt

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

7. Are there other things a confident, articulate man might find attractive in a woman besides her face

and body? His attitude is as demeaning to men as it is to women. I think he's saying that every man thinks with his cock and if he'd didn't bag the Prom Queen he's a loser.

[gratuitous]

9. In Coach Franklin's world, apparently not

I've known any number of women that might not meet the standard of the Coach Franklin Test of Subjective Attractiveness who would nevertheless reduce him to a puddle of quivering insecurity. If they deigned it worth the effort, that is.

[enough]

11. It's not often we focus on how this kind of sexism demeans men as well as women.

Thanks for pointing out this example.

[Canuckistanian]

8. WHAT?

I'm at a loss for words here.....

[Woody Woodpecker]

10. I'm sure the provosts of Vanderbilt University will end this schmuck's career

very shortly.

[truebrit71]

12. I should bloody well hope so...what a mucking foron...

[Initech]

14. Vanderbilt's QB is Jordan Rodgers - another outspoken member of the "Oppressed religious white male" club.

Makes you wonder what kind of organization they're running there.

[Celebration]

13. here is what I loved about the article

he is more like the Larry Summers of the south!! LOLOLOL

Having said that, his sin is that he actually stated that he did this. Football is just a pretty sexist sport, and there is no telling what football coaches will do in hiring or anything else. It just mostly stays hidden.

Here is what I have to say about all this,--he is not too smart. In the world of college football coaches, you are supposed to hide your sexism, not announce it in interviews.